As soon as Iran announced the start of enrichment activities at Fordo site, western powers were fast to condemn despite Tehran’s declaration that its activities were under IAEA supervision
As soon as Iran announced the start of enrichment activities at Fordo site, western powers were fast to condemn the Iranian move and dub it a further escalation with the international community despite Tehran’s declaration that its activities were under the UN atomic body supervision.
In an interview with Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) late Monday, Ali Asghar Soltanieh told Press TV that Fordo was declared more than two years ago and since then the agency is continuously monitoring all the activities.
In Vienna, IAEA spokesperson Gill Tudor confirmed in a statement that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent... in the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant, adding that “all nuclear material in the facility remains under the agency's containment and surveillance.”
Both Solatanieh and the IAEA stressed that the UN nuclear watchdog had deployed 24-hour cameras there and inspectors to keep it under watch.
Western sources claimed that the work is being done without informing the IAEA.
“If [Iranians] are enriching at Fordo to 20 percent, this... is a further escalation of their ongoing violations with regard to their nuclear obligations,” US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said calling on Iran to suspend enrichment activities, cooperate fully with the IAEA and immediately comply with all Security Council and IAEA board of governors resolutions.
Germany, Britain and France reiterated the American position with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle calling Iran’s move a "further escalation" that raised concerns Iran's nuclear program was for military ends. He also expressed confidence that the European Union would agree new sanctions against Iran at a January 30 meeting.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he was "extremely disappointed" with the enrichment activity naming it a "provocative act.” He said the "size, location, and clandestine nature [of the plant] raise serious questions about its ultimate purpose", adding that Iran could provide "no credible rationale for producing so much 20 percent enriched uranium.”
A French Foreign Ministry statement on Monday said: “This new provocation… leaves us with no other choice but to reinforce international sanctions and to adopt, with our European partners and all willing countries, measures of an intensity and severity without precedent.”
Soltanieh, however, rejected western claims that the enrichment work at Fordo violates international law, saying that the Islamic Republic needs the 20-percent-enriched uranium for the production of nuclear fuel plates required at the Tehran Research Reactor for producing radioisotopes for cancer treatment.
“Every step we have taken so far and every step we will take in the future has been and will be under the IAEA containment and surveillance,” he said.
This development comes as Turkey announced nuclear talks between Iran and the west would be resumed on Turkish soil. For that end, Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was due to meet US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns for talks that would include among other issues the Iranian nuclear program, Turkish diplomatic sources told AFP.
Burns’ visit to Ankara comes amid rising tensions, with Iran holding successful naval war games and warning the United States to keep an aircraft carrier out of the Gulf.
